


"It Really Works!"

by Wrongful



Category: OMORI (Video Game)
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Mari (OMORI) Lives, Mari dies but gets revived post-Good Ending, Not Beta Read, kind of, written to help me deal with writers block
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-27 19:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30127947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrongful/pseuds/Wrongful
Summary: "Use LIFE JAM! It really works!"Six months after the confession at the hospital, Kel accidentally brings Mari back from the dead with... strawberry jam.
Relationships: Hero/Mari (OMORI)
Comments: 50
Kudos: 257





	1. April 8th

“You’re not  _ actually _ bringing that into church, are you?”

_ “Mhfpf--” _ Kel gulped -- “What’s the matter with it? It’s just a PBJ sandwich, it won’t hurt anybody.”

Hero sighed, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he and Kel walked down the sidewalk. He… couldn’t really blame him, he guessed. “Why’d you wake up so early, anyway?” It was only 6 in the morning; a usual time for Hero to be up, but Kel? Once in a lifetime event.

Kel shrugged, taking another bite of his hastily-made PB&J sandwich. “Dunno. Think I had like, a weird dream or somethin’. Shook me awake real early.”

“You mean like a nightmare?”

Kel shook his head. “Nah, it wasn’t really scary like that. Didn’t wake up in a cold sweat or anything, it just kinda… jolted me up, y’know?” Hero gave his younger brother a look as they kept walking. At the very least, Kel wasn’t having nightmares. That was good. It was better than he could say about himself some days, anyway.

After everything that happened… Four years wasn’t enough for his wounds to heal completely. Six months could only mean so much.

“Hey…” Kel rolled his neck to ease out the kinks, making a few loud cracks as he did. “You think it was okay to leave Sunny back home like that?” He shivered a bit, his basketball jersey doing little to protect him from the cool, early-morning air.

Hero shrugged. “He sleeps in a lot, and it felt rude to wake him up just because we got up early.” It’d been about six months since Sunny’s confession at the hospital. It was… not easy to accept. Even now, Kel was probably the only one in their group who had completely forgiven Sunny and Basil for… what they did. Kel was just too damn nice like that. In a lot of ways, Hero envied him.

But even if neither he nor Aubrey had  _ fully _ forgiven the two boys yet, that didn’t mean they ostracised them. Sunny and Basil were still their  _ friends; _ at least, he’d like to think so.  _ I’m not  _ **_not_ ** _ forgiving them, _ Hero kept telling himself,  _ I just… need more time. _

More time. That’s all.

Six months could only mean so much.

Just last night, they’d had everyone over at their house to hang out. Sunny was visiting for the next two weeks, and Kel offered to have him stay at their place. (Kel did; not Hero, the responsible adult who  _ should _ be managing these things himself.) It wasn’t like he could stay at Aubrey’s place, and nobody felt comfortable with Sunny being left alone with Basil just yet. So there weren’t many other options for him, anyway.

Hero had given up his bed for Sunny to use while he slept on the couch, and was just getting settled in downstairs when Aubrey and Basil showed up. The two couldn’t stay the night, but they did talk together for a long time. For a moment, Hero could close his eyes and pretend everything was back to how it was four years ago...

_ Basil was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, hands folded across his lap, while Aubrey sat on the floor, laning her back up against the armrest of the couch. She had a slight pout on her face; Kel and Hero’s parents wouldn’t let her bring her nail-bat inside, so she was forced to abandon it. Sunny and Kel were both sitting on the couch, Kel with a big smile across his face while Sunny only blinked at him. Even if the eyepatch-wearing boy struggled to express himself sometimes, everyone in the room could tell he was happy to be here. _

_ Hero was cooking up dinner for them in the other room, so he couldn’t join them in-person, but he could still overhear their conversations. _

_ “N-Narcolepsy?” Basil had asked. “That’s what the doctor thinks you have, Sunny?” Hero didn’t know why they were discussing their  _ diagnoses _ of all things, but he didn’t bother trying to pull them to a more lighthearted topic, especially from a whole room over. _

_ “Narco-what?” Kel had parroted -- or at least, tried to. “Isn’t that, like, when you revive a dead person? How’d you get diagnosed with that?” (Hero neglected to mention that Sunny never mentioned a  _ diagnosis, _ per say; only the doctor’s thoughts.) _

_ Aubrey had scoffed at him. “Kel, you dumbass,” she shot. “Bringing a dead guy back to life is  _ necromancy, _ not  _ narcolepsy.”

_ Basil had nodded. “A-Aubrey’s right, I think Narcolepsy is--” _

_ “Narcolepsy,” Aubrey continued, confidence overflowing in her voice, “Is what they call drug addicts.” _

_ Hero barely managed to stifle a laugh, all the way from the kitchen. “I don’t think that’s right either, Aubs!”, he called to them. Aubrey had shouted something about the nickname while the rest of the group had laughed. He thought he’d heard Sunny laugh in there as well, even. _

_ “B-But it’s got the prefix ‘narco’ in it, as in like,  _ narcotics, _ I thought!” _

Basil and Aubrey had left after dinner in fairly high spirits last night, and Sunny and Kel retired to their room to sleep, and Hero spent the night dreaming of buying new neck-pillows for their surprisingly uncomfortable couch. He woke up early as usual, Kel woke up early as not-usual, Sunny was set to sleep for the next few hours, so while they had time to kill, the two brothers decided to give Mari’s grave a quick visit.

It was Kel’s suggestion, of course. It was an odd hour, and Hero felt bad leaving Sunny behind, even with a note, but he figured it’d be okay.

Though, he’d feel a lot  _ more _ okay if Kel didn’t think eating his breakfast in a graveyard was socially acceptable.

It was empty, with just the faintest hints of the orange sunrise glinting off of the cool morning fog and the drops of dew on the grass and leaves, but Hero  _ still _ felt like this was all pretty disrespectful. To someone. The spirits, maybe? (Mari would probably just sigh with a thinly-veiled smile if she could see them now.)

They approached Mari’s headstone, all the way in the back corner of the graveyard. A tense silence fell over the two; even Kel’s chewing had become muffled.

“...Hey, Hero?” Kel asked, his voice very small.

“Yeah?”

“Do’ya think…” Kel paused for a moment, “Do you think Mari would forgive Sunny and Basil… if she were still here?”

Hero was silent. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the epitaph on Mari’s headstone:

_ “Our dearest Mari; The sun shined brighter when she was here.” _

“...I wish I knew.”

The two stood there for a long moment. The crickets and birds being the only thing to break their chilling silence, aside from the gentle gusts of wind blowing around them, whipping their hair around their face, the pale fog curling around their legs. The sky, overcast just a few minutes ago, was starting to clear up, with a brilliant sunrise glowing all around them, turning the dark greens into a faint yellow and orange, with purples and pinks curling across the clouds above them.

A ray of sunshine fell down onto Mari’s headstone, and Hero hoped she was here right now, that she could see him, see that he was  _ trying. _ Trying to move on, trying to forgive himself, trying to forgive Sunny and Basil, trying to be happy again. Trying to live in a world without her, trying to keep himself together.

Kel quietly took another bite of his PB&J sandwich--

_ Squelch! _ A glob of red strawberry jam squeezed out of Kel’s hands and landed on the dirt before Mari’s headstone.

_ “Kel!” _

“S-Sorry! I just--  _ blegh! _ \-- I got some hair in my mouth!” He sighed. “Well, I hope Mari won’t be too upset that I--”

**Kel uses LIFE JAM!**

**MARI rose again!**

Whatever words Kel had tried to say died on his lips, because when a pale arm burst from the ground like a  _ fucking _ zombie, all he could do was screech in blind terror.

Kel and Hero stumbled backwards in horror as the earth cracked beneath them, an ashen figure with raven-black hair rising from the ground. Kel dropped his sandwich on the ground as he backpedaled, still screaming all the while. He tripped over a bump in the dirt and fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on another headstone. Kel fell to the ground like a rock, the surprise combined with the blow to his head knocking him out cold.

Hero fell flat on his back as well, lucky enough not to hit his head on anything. Eyes wide in terror, he froze up as the reanimated body rose fully from the earth, adorned in a simple off-white funeral gown, with thick black hair that went all the way down to her waist.

He whimpered with horror as the girl turned to face him, her face contorted in just as much fear and confusion as he was feeling. It was only then he realized -- her familiar face, her headstone, her impossibly violet eyes staring into his hazel ones -- it was a name Hero could never forget, but one he struggled to even mutter.

_ “M...Mari?”, _ he barely whispered, before he, too, passed out on the ground.

* * *

Mari was  _ this close _ to having a  _ fucking _ panic attack, but she had other issues to deal with first.

She rushed over to Hero’s limp body, grabbing his shirt and desperately trying to wake him up. Thankfully, he had only fainted, but she’d rather not just  _ leave _ him there. Kel, too; it looked like that bump would be hurting tomorrow.

Grabbing Hero, she pulled him into a tight embrace, her thoughts rushing far too fast for her to shed any tears just yet. His body felt so  _ warm _ on hers, her skin almost unnaturally pale compared to his healthy tan. She ran back through her mind; the first memory that popped into her head was a young Sunny’s expression contorting into horror as she fell away from him, down, down, down,  **_crack--_ **

She blinked. She was… dead. She  _ was _ dead. That… somehow didn’t surprise her, as much as it should’ve. Even after her apparent death, she still had some “memories” floating about in her mind, but they were hazy and distant, like the memory of an old dream. Was that some kind of afterlife? Or were these memories of herself as a… ghost?

Well, wherever she was these past four and a half years, she was  _ here _ now, and that was all that--

...Four and a half years? How’d… how’d she know that? Oh, God, was Sunny--

No! No panicking, no thinking about that right now. First, she needed to find out what the  _ hell _ was going on, and how Kel had managed to revive her with…

She glanced back at her headstone, tilted at an odd angle from her disturbing the earth around it. ...How Kel revived her with… strawberry jam.

“What on  _ earth _ is all this  _ ruckus--” _ A voice called out behind her. Mari whipped around to see the church priest, dressed in his usual black robes, staring at her like he’d seen a ghost. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he fainted, falling into the dew-covered grass like a rock.

Mari sighed. This was going to be a  _ nightmare _ to figure out.

* * *

_ “Omori? Can you hear me?” _

_ The pale boy spun around, looking around White Space for the voice,  _ _ her voice, _ _ before his eyes fell on Mari. She was dressed in the same ghostly white dress as always, flowing around her like a gloomy wedding gown. _

_ She twirled in place, her dress floating up like a blooming flower, before she approached him, resting a gentle hand on his cheek. _

_ “We’ve been dreaming for a long while now, haven’t we? I’m going home now. Can you take care of the place for me?” _

_ Omori placed his own hand over hers, staring up into her deep black eyes. He couldn’t tell what he was feeling, but some kind of emotion rose up in his chest, something so tangled and conflicted like a ball of yarn constricting around his chest. _

_ “We’ll meet again soon. I love you… Sunny.” _

_ She faded into the pale of White Space, leaving Omori all alone. He quietly sighed to himself. Dreaming for a long while, huh? _

_ Maybe it was time for him to wake up. _


	2. Something In The Way

“Wha-” Mari couldn’t believe what she was seeing right now, what she was _hearing._ She had Hero hoisted onto her back, her legs shaking under his (surprisingly light, but still far too heavy for her) weight, having painstakingly carried him all the way from the church back to her house where he could rest and they could… solve this together.

She had to leave Kel behind, his head resting on the cushions of the pews. Poor Kel. She’d come back for him later.

Anyway, back to her house-- which _apparently_ either wasn’t her house anymore, or Mom and Dad aged about a billion years in the time she’s been dead. A slouching, elderly man had opened the door for her, barely able to see her through the heavy spectacles on his face. He didn’t recognize any of the names she mentioned, only that they had moved in half a year ago. _Moved in._ Into _her_ house.

If Mari were any more stressed she’d be screaming at the poor elderly couple to get the fuck off of her property, but she had _some_ self-control left. Some.

“Are you friends with the old family that lived here, young miss?” He offered. “I have their number still, I can give them a ring--”

“I’ll be _just fine,_ thank you,” she spat out with a bit more venom than she would’ve liked. She was stressed, okay? She turned on her heel, her white dress flaring up in the morning sun, as she stormed away from her -- _not hers anymore_ \-- home.

“I-Is that Henry on your back--”

Mari firmly ignored him as she walked away from her -- (she grit her teeth, and not out of the effort of carrying Hero) -- their lawn. Hero’s house was just next door anyway. She could drop him off there, go back to get Kel, and… figure something out. She wasn’t sure where to go from there.

How could she be? People don’t really think about what they’d do if they _came back from the grave._ She strolled around in a big semicircle from her old front door to Hero’s with a groan, blocking out anything the old man was trying to call out to her. Hopefully he left his door unlocked.

...Was it even his door? His house? Maybe he moved, too. ...But that can’t be right, he was just visiting her grave, r-right? People weren’t moving on and leaving her behind, were they?

How were Kel and Hero doing before she found them? Where was Aubrey right now? Was Basil doing okay?

Sunny…

...She paused outside of Hero’s front door. She still had some memories that seemed somehow out of place, like they’d somehow happened _after_ she died. They were fuzzy, but undeniably there. But none of them made any _sense_ \-- How could she have gone to a picnic with everyone as a ghost?

She went to a lot of picnics when she was dead, apparently, and in all kinds of weird locations she’d never been to in person. An orbital junkyard, a pink castle, a… underwater casino…?

But there were parts that were believable as well -- too believable. Aubrey, alone in a filthy and rundown bathroom, lightbulb above her head barely flickering to stay on, as she poured pink hair dye over her head, struggling to hide her tears. Hero, laying in his bed with the sheets over his head, growing more and more tense as a worried Kel tried to console him. Basil, alone in his room in the middle of the night, a square of moonlight on the floor from the window as he cowered in the corner, staring at a pair of garden shears for just a bit too long.

And Sunny… Where even was he now? He couldn’t have handled her death very well. Especially when he was the one who…

_\--basil,carryingajumpropeoutintothebackyard--_

...She… wanted to see him first. Make sure he was okay, make sure that this was all _real._ Then, she could figure out… how she felt. Breathe in, breathe out. One step at a time. She’d figure it all out one step at a time ( _including_ where Kel learned necromancy from.)

Shifting Hero into a more stable position on her back, Mari reached out and turned the knob on his front door.

* * *

Kel was gone when Sunny woke up and he didn’t know what to do.

He could tell it was morning, but the sun didn’t filter through the window well at this angle, so it was dark. Too dark. Waking up in the dark was bad. The dark was bad. 

_(it’d been six months now he did what they asked--)_

Sunny rolled out of bed and hit the floor with a thud, seething as he landed on his shoulder. The blankets from Hero’s bed fell down around with him, leaving him in a tangled mess on the floor. He didn’t move for a few minutes; the blankets encompassed him, protected him. He didn’t know if he had the strength to abandon that protection.

Eventually he stood up. He let the blankets stay wrapped around him like a heavy cloak, standing in the darkness, before he let them drop to the floor. Stepping over them, he walked over to the bedroom door--

_iloveyousunny_

He spun around, pressing his back into the door as he looked slowly over Hero and Kel’s bedroom. It was dark. There were too many shadows for his liking; which one would it jump out from? Which ones was it hiding in? How many were staring at him right now?

Taking a deep breath, he turned around and slipped out of the room, tiptoeing through the crack in the doorway.

He stood at the top of the stairway now. (He couldn’t remember walking there from the door.) Even if they were lived in by two different families, Kel’s house and his old house were built the same, so even if this wasn’t the _same_ stairwell…

 _It_ was _the same stairwell. A dark shape lay on the ground before the bottom step, some tangled and writhing and_ growing _mass that wanted to reach up, to encroach upon each stair one by one while he stood there and watched as it grew and grabbed him and pulled him down his neck smashed into one of the steps and he caught his leg on the railing and it snapped off and he tried to shield his face and broke his hand apart he lost his pinkie finger he jerked downwards and smashed his spine on another step it was looking at him right now he lost his ring finger he could see him cowering behind the wall out of the corner of his eye he still had that jump rope he lost his middle finger he smashed his brains open like a watermelon on the floor but he wasnt allowed to die yet he lost his index finger he tightened the rope around his neck and let him fall down down down all the way from the roof it was a long way down he lost his thumb--_

Sunny’s feet touched down on the floor. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and walked forward into the kitchen. He’d be fine. Hero and Kel were in the next room eating breakfast, so he’d--

They weren’t there.

Now Sunny was _really_ starting to worry. Maybe… Maybe Hero left to get groceries. It wasn’t weird for him to go to the store early. But did Kel really go with him, too, at this hour...?

His stomach growled threateningly. He felt like he was back in his empty old house, at some ungodly hour in the morning, desperately trying to keep himself calm for long enough to sate his needs and go back to his perfect dream world. (He didn’t want to go back. Never again.)

He put a hand on the refrigerator door--

_She put a hand on his shoulder--_

He fell to his knees. _(She fell.)_

He thought It’d leave him alone. He thought It was satisfied, that he could start moving on. Instead, It had come back to haunt him again. It would never leave him alone.

Nothing was behind him.

Anything was behind him.

Something was behind him.

There was a knife on the kitchen counter that Sunny quickly grabbed for, fumbling with it before he pressed his back up to the refrigerator door while holding the knife out in front of him, daring any ghosts to approach him.

They wouldn’t come close. All they would do is follow behind him, staring at him from the shadows, silently judging him for his sins.

Sunny darted away into the living room. It was too dark here, only some faint pale sunlight drifting through the curtains by the door. He practically sprinted over to the phone, tripping over himself in the process. _He fell, the knife in his hand falling right into his chest--_

He reached up for the phone on the small table next to the TV. He needed to make a call. He needed to hear someone, _anyone’s_ voice right now. ...Well, one voice in particular.

He punched in the number with shaky hands. He’d never let himself forget his number.

_“U-Um, hey! Is that you Kel?”_

“B-Basil,” Sunny barely managed to choke out. Something was getting closer.

_“S-Sunny? Is something wrong? What’s--”_

“Something.”

Basil’s voice was quiet on the other end of the phone. Sunny could faintly hear panicked breaths over the speaker. _“I… Is Kel or Hero there? A-Anyone?”_

“Gone,” Sunny breathed, his voice very small. “Dunno where.”

Something jumped closer, and Sunny leapt out of the way like some threatened wild animal, leaping over the couch as he held his knife in a deathgrip. He grabbed a blanket that was folded on the back of the couch and threw it over his back. He couldn’t run, but he could hide. (Hide from himself.)

Basil must’ve heard him bumping around over the phone. Sunny absently wondered how far he could run from the phone’s receiver before he lost connection. _“That’s… O-Okay, I’m on my way! I’ll be over there as fast as I can, okay?!”_

“Please.” Please help me. Please get me out of here. Please don’t let me die. Please don’t leave me alone (like I left you alone, all those years).

_“A-Alright! Just... s-stay there, okay! Don’t move! I’ll--”_

The door opened, and light flooded into the room.

Something retreated into the darkness while Sunny crouched against the back of the couch, knife in one hand and phone in another, cowering under a blanket as he sat squarely in front of the open door frame.

An all-too-familiar figure stood past the open door, adorned in an all-too-perfect snow-white dress, pale curtains flanking her on either side. Her inky black hair, the same hair he’d spent years drifting through nightmares and dreams about, flowed behind her with some kind of eternal grace.

They both froze at the sight of each other. A second figure -- _was that Hero?_ \-- slumped off of her back and fell to the floor unceremoniously. She took a few steps closer, a few gentle sobs wracking her form.

She fell to her knees before him, and Sunny looked her in the eyes, into her all-too-perfect violet eyes.

_“Sunny… I’m so sorry.”_

Mari -- _Mari_ \-- embraced him suddenly, and the knife and phone fell out of Sunny’s limp hands, clattering to the floor. Tears fell from his face as his body quaked. He’d seen countless hallucinations of this, countless dreams, countless nights longing for this exact moment. He’d thought he wouldn’t let himself feel anything over these illusions anymore, crying over something that wasn’t there, that would never be there again--

Mari pressed her face, wet with tears, into his shoulder as she ran her finger through her hair, the same way she always did when he cried. This couldn’t be… _real_ , she _couldn’t_ be here, not after what he did, not after everything--

 _“S-Sunny?! Sunny, are you there?! Are you okay?!”_ Basil’s panicked, staticky voice came from the phone on the ground by his side. Sunny would get back to him later.

A groan came from behind them. Mari spun around _(nodontleave)_ to look at Hero, who she had dropped on the floor in a heap. He sat up, rubbing his bumped head, before he froze at the sight of _Mari!!_ and Sunny embracing in the light of the doorframe.

Hero’s expression was unreadable, masked by shadows just barely out of the window’s reach, and he said, “I… have _so many_ questions.”

* * *

_“...man? Are you…”_

Kel opened his eyes, his head in way more pain than it should’ve been. Last thing he remembered, he was visiting Mari’s grave with Hero, and…

“Young man? Can you hear me?”

Kel blinked, looking up at the priest who was shaking him awake. Kel was lying down alone on one of the pews, a pillow tucked under his head.

“Huh?”

How’d he… _get_ here?

“What???”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sorry kel
> 
> also damn, this is the most comments ive ever gotten on a chapter, and it was a 2k word crackfic. rip my inbox

**Author's Note:**

> i don't really know what i'm doing. was having some mild writer's block with my hollow knight fic so i decided to try something different to help me break out of that. don't take this too seriously.
> 
> quick edit: i want to add more to this, but i don't have any real plan nor an update schedule, it's just a thing i'll work on when i'm bored


End file.
